Most mobile games publishers don't love September, and with good reason. Kids got back to school and adults on vacation go back to work taking their in-app purchases back with them.
This year, that results in about $70M of post-store-fee revenue going poof.
I crunched the numbers and ranked the highest-earning mobile games in September, and while almost every game shifted, the top remained the same as August's.
Whiteout Survival was the highest earning mobile game in the world in September, bringing in an estimated $113M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play, where it ranked 2nd and 5th, respectively., according to our estimates.
Last War came in 2nd, Royal Match in 3rd, and Monopoly Go in 4th - the same exact ranking as August but with less revenue.
But all that money wasn't completely gone. Some has shifted.
Clash Royal rose a spot into 5th place and almost every game below it shifted as well.
Clash Royale had an amazing month, earning $97M after fees, a $5M increase from August, according to our estimates. It also climbed up to 3rd place on the App Store's highest earners chart for September, where the majority of the game's revenue comes from.
One other thing to pay attention to is Tencent's domination of the App Store, where it now has three titles in the top ten, including Honor of Kings (#1), PUBG Mobile (#7), and the China-only version of TFT Mobile ($#9).
Apple's focus on China might be one of Tim Cook's biggest achievements as CEO.
According to Appfigures Intelligence, the top 10 highest-earning games earned $895M in net revenue in September, a 7% drop from August's total and the second month in a row under $1B. But there's hope - the holidays are right around the corner. Is your game ready?
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